Verisimilitude
by Kalliel
Summary: Itachi comes home to a fevered Sasuke, and is forced to re-evaluate his role in the Uchiha family. One moment, in the garbled minutes before dawn. Pre-massacre, siblingship.


**Verisimilitude**  
_Naruto fan fiction_

**Genre: **character study, pre-series  
**Rating:** G (K)  
**Characters:** Itachi, Sasuke**  
Word Count:** a little less than 1,500  
**Summary: **Itachi comes home to a fevered Sasuke, and is forced to re-evaluate his role in the Uchiha family.  
**Notes: **Pre-dates the Uchiha massacre by about six months.

* * *

It is one of those mornings where only dull light filters through the cloudcover, casting everything in austere shades of white and grey and deep, sentinel green.

In Konoha, everything is green, always. The only difference is manifest in the shades—vibrant green like the jumpsuit of one of his senpai (whose name Itachi has never caught, but whose face he will never forget), or dead-of-winter green like today, which makes one feel as though the forest is watching, and the village is watching, but no one is moving.

Itachi watches, too; he stands in the center of the kitchen, straight-still like a part of the house, and not a denizen of it.

Itachi feels this way sometimes.

A lot of times. He doesn't suppose it's normal, given the manner his peers talk about their homes, and their families, but the same feeling separates him from _them_ as well, so it is difficult to draw any conclusions.

Despite the winter that sweeps in from the outside—upon returning home, the first thing Itachi did was fling open the shouji, storm shutters likewise cast asunder—the air is heavy with moisture and weighs on Itachi's mind and chest like death, and loneliness, and other things that he thinks he must surely have felt, though he is unable to recall any exact instances where this might be true.

Everything blurs together, in the end. Season to season, day to day, dusk to dawn.

It's a little lighter now, though just as flat. _So this is the sunrise, then._ He hasn't been home in quite some time, hasn't slept for about as long.

He feels it. Even before his body admits that it is exhausted, real thought, comprehension—these things join 'family' and 'friendship', on the other side of the barrier. (But one needs none of these to complete a mission. Itachi is slowly beginning to realize, as months slip into years and the barrier is only fortified, that perhaps it is _better_ if these things do not exist.)

From the other side, someone whimpers.

Itachi slides the (real, tangible door in front of him, the one that leads from the hall to the kitchen) shouji open, and there is Sasuke.

Sasuke waddles into the kitchen, swathed in his bedquilt. He's gathered it about his head like a hood, but it floods onto the ground regardless, makes a sound like the whispering of secrets as it slides across the tatami.

"Mother?"

Itachi regards him blankly. Mother isn't there. Perhaps it is an inquiry as to her location. "She's busy." He doesn't know where she is, either.

"Mother, it's too hot." Sasuke scrunches his eyes shut and shivers, burying his head into Itachi's pants and the flesh of his thigh. Distantly, Itachi hopes he does not smell too strongly of death. "_Mommy_."

Itachi has many times been mistaken for things he is not, but never for another person entirely.

Sasuke breathes out a shuddering puff of white frost. And Sasuke _does_ feel hot, Itachi realizes. Previously, he'd thought _he_ had simply been too cold. Sasuke's cheeks are flared pink, slick with sick-sweat and tears.

A fever, then.

What Itachi thinks about that is difficult to say. He is sorry that Sasuke is in pain, but doesn't see himself as part of the cure. Some pains are meant to be endured.

Itachi extracts his leg from Sasuke's embrace. _Sorry Sasuke, maybe next time_, he thinks. _It is Mother you want, and Mother you need. When she comes back, she'll take care of you._ (And if she doesn't return? A small voice asks. Itachi has one mission he isn't sure he will ever complete. When he thinks about it, he wishes he were not himself.)

He wishes the same thing now.

As he backs away from Sasuke, the back of his hand slides against soft canvas. It's Mother's apron, crafted sturdily to last her through whatever trials may await her daily in the Uchiha kitchen (as Itachi recalls, the exact phrasing is Kakashi-senpai's. He brought it a few days after Sasuke was born, as a gift. Itachi didn't know why, and wasn't overly interested in finding out. But ever since Kakashi left ANBU, many of Itachi's missions have involved keeping watch over him. Apparently, he is the friend of a late, distant cousin). As suspicious as Sharingan Kakashi may be, the apron is harmless.

Independent of any real decision or motivation, Itachi's fingers lift it from its hanging place and slip it over his head. The fabric is worn smooth from constant use, and smells of rosemary and ginger. The apron is too large, and hangs at odd angles, but the scent overpowers everything; it floods his nostrils and his throat until Itachi needs to open his mouth and speak, or else be drowned.

"Feeling sick?"

Itachi's voice is still Itachi's, but the words are not. They are the brand of words that don't mean anything, aren't really asking anything, because the situations that compel them simultaneously make their answers self-evident. But Itachi has always taken them for what they were: acknowledgement.

"My head hurts.

"And my tummy.

"And my throat."

And he seems so helpless against all of this. It stirs an ache inside of Itachi that he cannot place exactly. He sinks into a crouch, which puts him just below eye-level with Sasuke. (Little brother is getting taller.) "Mommy," he breathes. He wonders if it's acceptable, this deception. "Mommy is going to make you better."

There are worse deceptions.

He boils water. He isn't sure what more to do, what more he _can_ do; there are foods to eat when one is ill, but he has no clue as to what these might be. He has only ever ingested them—no looking, no tasting.

He looks down at the water now, just before he pours it into a mug. In it he sees only himself. "Drink this." It comes out more an order than a suggestion. He doesn't think he could ever be Uchiha Mikoto; were Sasuke not half-asleep and feversick, Itachi would still be Itachi now, and Mother would be just as absent as she really is.

And yet, Itachi sees no reason to break the illusion that's unfolded between them. He sits down across from Sasuke and smoothes the front of the apron over his lap. It is a peculiar shade of green (not red, nor black, like everything else within these walls). It's not a Youthful Enthusiasm green, nor a vigilant one.

Itachi has never been overly fond of colors, but he has seen enough with the intensity afforded by sharingan to gather that it is the green of acceptance.

The thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

Blind acceptance.

His deception works as well as it does because Sasuke is so devoted to him; it never once occurs to him that Itachi might have lied. And on some level, this is disturbing, because Itachi is of the impression that no one person should ever be believed in that extremely. Perhaps it is ANBU that's made him this way; however, he suspects that it is this family.

There is too much dependence on one person.

Itachi has only his suspicions, but he does not think that person should be trusted.

The thought makes him feel sick and exhausted. He stares at Sasuke's hands—Itachi's elbows are propped up on the tabletop, his hands cupped loosely over his mouth—as they take the mug, tentative at first, but with vastly more assurance after the first sip. He watches unblinkingly and unmovingly, until he is staring not _at_ Sasuke, but through him, and the scenery is distorted through a curtain of eyelashes.

Everything blurs together, in the end.

Because Itachi is…happy that he has Sasuke's trust. He doesn't know what it means, not fully, but it feels special, something to be cherished. (_It's a gift_, Mother says. _A gift from a cherished person. It's okay to accept these things, Itachi.)_

But it isn't right, and it needs to be broken.

Itachi stands, sways momentarily as the blood rushes from his head. He should sleep.

Mother passes him, pausing just enough for a cursory glance of concern, just as he is about to slide the shouji shut. Her real concern is for the kettle screaming in the kitchen, anyway. Itachi hadn't even noticed the sound before.

The screaming stops. "Sasuke? What's wrong? Feeling sick?"

"Itachi-nii made me better."

The words hang about Itachi, suspended in the thick winter air. They are a mix of warmth and sick-feeling. He slides the door closed, _clack_ as it hits the frame.

Itachi realizes he is still wearing the apron.

* * *

_End._

This fic was written almost purely to see Itachi in an apron. It was one of those odd, distorted fancies.

Constructive criticism is, as always, much appreciated!


End file.
